Shipping Agents

A special kind of Cost Basis is Shipping Agent. This cost basis enables ZBS to pass a cart (or part of a cart) on to another eCommerce shipping method for an Additional Cost Calculation. Like any other Cost Basis measure, Shipping Agent is entirely optional. Only enable it if you need to use ZBS in association with other shipping methods. This is not something you will need for most shops!

Shipping Agent can only be enabled for Additional Cost Calculation and cannot be used for Base Cost Calculation.

If you are using ZBS as a manager for other shipping methods, you will need to configure the other shipping methods as usual within eCommerce, but then leave them disabled in eCommerce. Otherwise eCommerce will calculate them directly rather than using ZBS.

You can then add a Shipping Agent Additional Cost Calculation rule within a Shipping Cost Rule, where a select menu in the Additional Cost Calculation chooses the shipping method to pass the cart to. The returned value will then be added to the base cost provided by ZBS and any other additional costs.

With the Shipping Agent cost basis, you can use ZBS to calculate shipping costs directly for some zones, but add calculations from various shipping methods to other zones. You can even use ZBS as a dispatcher to direct shipping between other shipping methods for all your zones!